Compasso d’oro Carrier Award

Product culture, creative engineering and entrepreneurial courage make Piaggio the leading character in one of the most fascinating adventures in Italian design. In April 1946 the Vespa was born, the scooter par excellence, the best-selling and the most imitated in the world with innovative features such as the load-bearing body, the single-sided front fork and direct transmission to the wheel. The Ciao was born in 1967, followed by many new products up to the Sfera, the first scooter with plastic bodywork which won the ADI Compasso d’Oro 1991 award. In 2001, with the Gilera brand, it won the world title in the 125cc class. A regular feature of mass motorization, Piaggio is an Italian company that creates styles, forms of behaviour and modern myths.

A decades-long dedication to in-depth research into design and comfort, in a specialized field with profound national and cultural diversity is at the heart of the company’s international success. The excellence of its manufacturing and communication throughout its history, represents a contribution to the enhancement of Italian design and its products worldwide.

After working in the family business of Vitra in Basel, in 1970 he became editor and producer at the Bavaria Film Company in Munich and from 1973 to 1977 coordinator of the Bavarian Chamber of Architects. In 1977 he took over the leadership of Vitra, drawing inspiration in the product strategy from the designs of Charles and Ray Eames and in 1989 the Vitra Design Museum. In 1960 he began to collaborate with important Italian designers, including Mario Bellini, Antonio Citterio and Alberto Meda.

JUSTIFICATION
An internationally renowned character, he contributed to the reputation of Vitra, a Swiss company of primary importance in the culture of contemporary design. His vision, which broadened the company’s horizon to adopt the social role of proactive agent for the entire sector, has its most enlightened representation of the great European industrial tradition in the form of the Vitra Museum.

After attending the University of Grenoble, she began her business activity in the 1950s with an interest in Scandinavian design, of which she became the first importer in Italy with her company ICF De Padova. She began producing office furniture for Herman Miller in collaboration with the Eames, Nelson and Girard. In the 1980s she sold the ICF brand and began producing furniture and objects with the Lei È De Padova brand, collaborating with Magistretti, Castiglioni, Rams and Piano.

JUSTIFICATION
Maddalena De Padova’s outstanding commitment to the creation and spreading of design, as a common culture and form of comparison in various international contexts is a unique example of consistency and quality in Italy. From the mid-fifties to today, her research represents in an exemplary way the happy synthesis between design (company and product), manufacturing and distribution. Her in-depth knowledge of Scandinavian, American and Italian design, due to her collaboration with some of the greatest names in world design such as Alvar Aalto, Arne Jacobsen, Charles Eames, George Nelson, Dieter Rams, Achille Castiglioni and Vico Magistretti to name but a few, combined with her tireless energy, have made De Padova a world reference point for Italian design.

Graduated in Chemical Engineering in Milan in 1949, in the same year he founded Kartell, producing plastic car accessories. He was among the first to understand the potential of plastic in everyday objects, producing household items and furnishing accessories. From the 1960s he worked together with the best Italian and international designers, including the Castiglioni brothers, Aulenti, Colombo, Zanuso, Sapper and in 1956 he was one of the founders of ADI, of which he was president (1957-58) and vice president (1992 -98). In 2000 he founded the Kartell Museum in Noviglio (Milan). Kartell products have received three Compasso d’Oro awards.
 

JUSTIFICATION
This special award, unanimously conferred by the ADI Executive Committee and the directors of the ADI Foundation for Italian Design to Giulio Castelli, engineer and founder of Kartell spa, is recognition for the tenacity of his work in the historic Association for Industrial Design from 1956, the year of its foundation, to today. A constant and passionate undertaking, conducted together with many others, in the deep conviction that only from the collective work of all those involved in the design system could the desire to witness be born in the preservation of the past and the development of the contents necessary to build the future. The nearly fifty years of history of ADI prove him right.